


I Hate

by orangefriday



Series: Kim Clan Headcanons [6]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, COVID 19, M/M, Racism, ye good ol introspective piece by yours truly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:36:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27894688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangefriday/pseuds/orangefriday
Summary: Nico hates all of this. Everything.Set in s17x04.
Relationships: Nico Kim & Levi Schmitt, Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Series: Kim Clan Headcanons [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1287356
Comments: 18
Kudos: 123





	I Hate

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially a fix-it fic for s17x04. I appreciate what Grey's tried to do in addressing issues of racism, colourblindness and xenophobia, so I wanted to take it beyond where TV probably wouldn't allow.

“Where are you from?”

Nico hates this question.

But he smiles anyway, even though she can’t see it through his mask. Even though he knows exactly what she thinks she sees.

“Orthopaedics,” he replies and keeps his voice pleasant. He assesses her injuries and lets her know his findings and offers treatment. Gives her reassurance and direction. Shows her competence and the ability to get her the medical care that she needs.

Nico’s doing his job.

“Orthopaedics?” Tseng’s saying as he types orders into the computer. “You know that’s not what she’s asking.”

“I know.” He keeps his tone light. Playful. He keeps typing.

“It doesn’t bother you? Her assuming you’re not from here?”

He avoids looking at her, but he can see her arms are crossed and feels her eyes bore into him. There’s an ever present fire beneath him that he walks in all the time and he can almost see it consuming her.

He should put it out.

“Happens to all of us at some point, right?”

The doors of the ER open and a patient is wheeled in and with it, goes Tseng.

Nico lets out a breath and goes back to his job.

*

“You need a haircut.”

It’s Yunjae, his sister. Nico’s got his phone propped up against a box of gloves while he goes through some radiographs of a broken hand on his tablet.

“Yunjae-ssi, why are you calling me?” he asks, distracted and ignoring her comment.

“Making sure oppa is alive,” she says pointedly in Korean and Nico instinctively looks around to see if anyone’s heard.

But he’s alone in the hallway.

Nico glances back over at his phone and his sister is furiously scribbling something into her sketchbook. Her hair is long too and messy and he can see the faint outline of a stain on her shirt.

He almost scoffs at her, but then she turns to the camera and stares right back at him. Her face is shrouded in soft concern. It’s not an expression he likes to see on his baby sister.

Nico hates that she’s looking at him like that. He also hates that she started freshman year at UCLA cooped up in a small, stuffy bedroom in their family home instead of on campus, enjoying sunny days and all nighters in the library with her friends. He hates that she graduated high school in an empty room with a camera and he had missed all of it. Hates that he’s a thousand miles away from her and that the last time he saw his parents was also when he and Levi —

Nico sighs and puts down his tablet and takes his phone into the office behind the nurses’ station. The hand can wait. It’s already broken anyway. He forces a wide smile behind his mask and hopes Yunjae can tell from his eyes that he’s fine. That he’s surviving. That he’s alive today.

“Show me what you’re drawing,” he says, softly, back in Korean and Yunjae’s eyes practically dance in delight.

*

He’s tired of people looking at him like he’s going to kill them. He’s a doctor for fuck’s sake. He’s even more tired of anticipating it from every single person he meets.

Are they thinking it? Will they say something? Will they believe him? He’s wearing a mask. Everyone’s wearing a mask. Except that one asshole everyday that refuses and Nico’s no more contagious than them.

He thought being gay was going to be hard.

So when he hears a familiar voice that leads him to the nurses’ station, Nico can’t stop himself before he’s already there and throwing Dave Oyadomari’s case file onto the counter, tapping away on his tablet.

Dave’s out of surgery and Nico’s been called for a consult with Hunt and Tseng. So he should’ve walked right past and into the elevators to ICU, but he’s here now. Mouth dry and chest tight with heat, hoping that the person in front of him in light blue scrubs offers just a moment of relief.

“Hey!” Levi says and Nico doesn’t dare look at him for more than a second.

“Hey.”

Nico suddenly can’t seem to concentrate so he taps a few random buttons on the screen, hoping this will be the extent of this interaction because he has to leave but at the same, he doesn’t want to.

“Hey,” Levi’s voice is cautious, inquiring. So it sounds like a question that Nico doesn’t know how to answer. His hands still and he wishes he was more adept at giving Levi what he wants.

He hates that he can’t do that.

So “You already said that,” is what Nico comes up with. And it feels awkward and nervous and stupid. So he leaves quickly, like he’s on fire and burning from the inside.

He forgets Dave’s file on the counter.

*

“Can I ask you something?”

“Am I literally the only person that can answer it?”

He hates that he is. Hates that he knew this was Hunt’s misdiagnosis the moment he looked at Dave and when the paramedic presented his case. And he hates that all he can tell Tseng is to prepare for the worst. That fighting this fight means putting yourself on fire in order to put out someone else’s.

*

“Do you and omma have enough masks?”

Yunjae’s in bed finally, but wearing the same dirty sweatshirt from earlier. Nico should probably say something but his sister looks so comfy and exhausted that he doesn’t have the heart to scold her.

“ _Yes_ , Nico,” she says and rolls her eyes. She waves a hand at him in exasperation and laughs. “So why are _you_ calling _me_? And on the same day? Aww, does oppa miss me?”

“No. Just bored,” he lies. He’s knee deep in paperwork and his conversation with Tseng and Dave’s case is running non-stop through his mind. And he’s been imagining his siblings — his noona, hyung, and especially Yunjae — making the trek alone to a hospital, walking into a room full of people that think they’re the reason the world has gone to shit, only to be sent home and misdiagnosed to die. And all because they’re Asian.

And he hates that when he sees Tseng, he sees Yunjae too, and how both of them have had to grow up constantly fighting this invisible fight that rages against all of them.

“Nico?” Her voice seems small and far away, but it pulls him back to the present. A place he’s not sure he wants to be, but there’s no where else to go anyway.

“Hm?”

She’s frowning. “Oppa. I never leave the house,” she says slowly, as if sensing his thoughts and reassuring him, because of course she doesn’t believe he’s _bored_ for a second. “Only once every few weeks when I go buy groceries with omma and we sanitize everything before it even enters the house. So don’t worry. We’re being safe.”

Hearing out loud how his family has to live now — how they _all_ have to live now — is like a punch to the gut. The reality of the world feels like a work of fiction.

“Good,” Nico swallows and he has to look away because Yunjae’s concerned again. He wants to tell her he’s not worried, but that would be a lie too.

Everything just makes Nico want to cry.

*

“Why did you do that?”

Tseng’s there, arms crossed and looking like a wall of fire that Nico almost walks straight into when he rounds the corner from Dave’s room.

His head still feels hot from confronting Hunt. He thought he was going to run out of breath before he could finish, but he got it all out. Spat at Hunt and laid it down for him to see as clear as day.

 _Just doing my job_ , Hunt had said. And _You don’t have to be so hard on her. She’s very attached to this patient._

Bullshit.

“Why did you kick me out of there like that?”

Nico lets out a breath, trying to catch more. “I didn’t want you to have to be the one to call him out on his racism. Not to the chief of trauma.”

“That’s _exactly_ why he needs to know. He’s the _chief_ of trauma. Out of everyone, it shouldn’t be him who makes such a _simple_ mistake. Assuming every patient is the same, regardless of race or ethnicity, is wrong.”

She’s right. Nico knows she’s right. It’s why they collect patient histories and backgrounds. It’s why there are studies and papers on treatments and how they work on different people. Every body is different. And to not see that? As a doctor?

It makes Nico sick. It makes him angry. He hates that there are people like that thinking nothing ill of it, who are even _proud_ to say they see everyone equally when the reality is: nobody’s equal. If everybody was equal, Nico wouldn’t have felt Tseng was in more danger for speaking up because she was a woman and she was Asian and he wouldn’t have to hear someone mumbling under their breath, calling him a chink and told to go back to where he came from just for walking past them on the street.

But what he hates the most, is the way he’s made to feel crazy for wanting all of these things to just _stop_. As if he has no right to. As if what he’s experienced isn’t real and is something rarely articulated out loud in any of the places he finds himself. 

When he doesn’t say anything, she continues, stronger, “And I might be a resident but I’m still a doctor. And a doctor needs to advocate for _all_ her patients. Now and future ones. So whether he’s an attending or the chief of this hospital, I should still be able to do that.”

“You’re right, Tseng,” he says finally and bows his head in shame. “You should be.”

Nico doesn’t see her expression, but her voice still does not waver. It’s firm and determined. A force in itself. “Look, I appreciate what you tried to do, but I can hold my own.”

He wants to say something, apologize, but she’s gone before he can find the words.

*

_I_ _hate this. I hate this. I hate this._

“I hate—” Nico rips his mask off and sits heavily on the bench. Yunjae’s right, his hair _is_ long.

“Me?”

It’s Levi. Nervous, cute, and sweet and soft. Leaning against the wall with his wide, green eyes looking at him. Nico loves that face. The sight of Levi is always intoxicating.

“Every single thing, except you.”

It’s the most truthful thing he’s said all week. And it’s something he’s always wanted to say to Levi in some way, shape, or form. But he hasn’t been able to. He still can’t really do it now.

So Nico can only offer a sad smile to Levi. It’s all the strength that’s left in him.

He’s so tired.

“I want to invite you over,” Levi starts. “But I guess we have not been great to each other. And I don’t know what’s really changed.”

Everything’s changed. Sometimes, he doesn’t even recognize himself anymore.

“Levi,” he says and lets himself speak. Lets himself look fully at the man that’s sitting beside him at arm’s length. Close, but still too far. “There’s a worldwide pandemic. We literally don’t know if we’re gonna live to see tomorrow. A lot has changed.”

 _I’ve changed,_ Nico wants to say. But he’s not sure if it’s for the better or worse. He keeps hoping the answer would reveal itself to him one day. If the constant bitterness in his chest will ever die down and let him go. He keeps finding broken pieces of himself everyday that need to be put back together, but which no longer fit in him.

So he doesn’t know if it’s a change Levi would like.

He doesn’t know if Levi would still love him as he is now.

Nico can feel his bottom lip trembling and his vision swims. He has to look away now, tightening his hold on his mask. His face grows hot and he feels lightheaded.

Then, a hand finds his.

Levi’s touch is cool and soft. Wet from the rain that had been left on the bench a few hours ago.

He looks up at Levi, surprised when he moves closer and presses the side of his body against Nico’s. He pries open Nico’s clenched fist and intertwines their fingers together.

Levi’s face is soft, open, and inviting. And all at once, Nico feels like a wave of cool water has washed over him, extinguishing some of the flames that had been burning him slowly for the past few months.

Suddenly he can breathe a little better.

“Okay,” Levi says, quietly. His face inches closer and Nico can’t keep his eyes off of him. He presses his lips on Nico’s. Tentative, careful, and just like that, Levi’s lips leave his again.

They don’t say anything. They just hold each other’s gazes and in that moment, for the first time, Nico stops yearning for a world that’s not like this one. Because in this moment, Levi is holding his hand and has just kissed him for the first time since their break up. In this moment, there’s nobody but the two of them and no distance between them. It’s not a moment Nico hates at all.

“Yeah, okay,” Levi says again, chuckling against his lips. “Let’s go.”

Nico thinks, _Yes, let’s go. Let’s be together. Even if it’s just for today._

But all Nico does is nod and smile as Levi finds a way through the flames.


End file.
